Back to Blighty

… nearly six actually.
Now that she is five she is at school from 9am until 4pm everyday. She has had her first solo playdate in the pueblo with a boy from school. She tells me that they fight “but not hitting”. OK, great. They mostly play Barbies.

You know you’re a daddy when…

I won’t lie to you. This post was not written by Mr B, but if it were it might go a little something like this (or not, who knows)…

You know you’re a Daddy when:

1. There is only “bobbins” on the CD multi-changer in the car. Bobbins and Barbara Streisand. In that f*cking order.

2. You find yourself sleeping in your child’s bed under a quilt that is woefully inadequate in every aspect for a man of your stature and general f*cking importance in this bloody house. The rest of the family are smugly snug as bugs in your bed. But there is neither place nor peace for you there.

3. A new female generation is pointing at your willy* and laughing and then telling everybody about it. Or…

4. A new male generation is pointing at your willy* and marveling at it’s enormity and then telling everybody about it.

5. You are some kind of fairground ride. Apparently. But you don’t get paid.

One. Two. Three. Up. And over.

6. There are more child entertainment apps than cool adult apps (we are not even talking adult adult here) on your iPad. Your iPad is covered in sticky finger marks. You have to join the queue to use it. Goddammit!

You get to play with Lego again.

7. You can’t get to your important bits and bobs, sorry your tools, in the garage without tripping over cots, car seats, buggies, high chairs, old toys, bag upon bag of old baby clothes etc, in fact everything that she is holding on to ‘just in case’.

8. And while we are on the subject of ‘just in case’, the chance would be a fine-rare-thing, right boys?

9. You take the bins out three times a day. Poo-filled nappies have no place in this house. Shit is shit after all. You ask yourself “am I the only one who can smell them?” Apparently the poop perp and the poop perp’s dealer can live with the poop in the kitchen bin. You can’t.

10. NOTHING. IS. F*CKING. SACRED. You can’t even poo in private any more. She is unsympathetic and tells you to join the f*cking club. This of course makes you feel much, much better about everything.

I make no claim that this is an exhaustive list. Please add to it. And if you were wondering how you know you are a mummy, please go here.

~~~

*Even without the disclaimer at the beginning it would not take a genius to work out that this was written by a woman. That said, as she is channeling a man, she has taken the opportunity to swear wildly. Sorry Mum.